Henry Kissinger Pushed Trump to Work
With Russia to Box In China

The former secretary of state pushed one
president to use China to isolate the Soviet Union. These days, he’s
counseling almost the reverse -- and officials are listening.

[W.Z.: This article reinforces my views on Mr. Kissinger that have been previously expressed in my analysis of Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff:

Of
more concern are the 8 hits for Ukrainophobe Henry Kissinger, who
developed his views on Russia-Ukraine while serving in the OSS
(forerunner of the CIA) and interacting with the Soviet NKVD. [It is
well known that the Roosevelt administration and the OSS were deeply
infiltrated by Soviet spies and intelligence personnel.] Vladimir Putin
received Mr. Kissinger in the Kremlin in Moscow on 29Jun2017 for
undisclosed reasons. ]

Henry Kissinger suggested to President Donald Trump that the
United States should work with Russia to contain a rising China.

The former secretary of state -- who famously engineered the
tactic of establishing diplomatic relations with China in order to
isolate the Soviet Union -- pitched almost the inverse of that idea to
Trump during a series of private meetings during the presidential transition,
five people familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. The
potential strategy would use closer relations with Russia, along with
other countries in the region, to box in China’s growing power and
influence.

Kissinger also pitched the idea to Jared Kushner, the top
White House adviser whose portfolio includes foreign-policy matters,
one of the sources briefed on the discussions said.

Inside the administration, the proposal has found receptive
ears, with some of Trump’s top advisers -- in addition to officials in
the State Department, Pentagon, and the National Security Council --
also floating a strategy of using closer relations with Moscow to
contain Beijing, according to White House and Capitol Hill insiders.
But the idea has been complicated by the president’s deference to
Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has caused countless domestic
political headaches.

Both the White House and the National Security Council
declined to comment. Kissinger's office did not return a request for
comment.

The mere fact that Kissinger was given an audience to make his
pitch -- he’s met with Trump at least three times since the 2016
campaign -- is a testament to his tremendous staying
power in top political circles, despite a controversial
foreign policy track record that includes numerous
accusations of war crimes. It also is a reflection of how
dramatically geopolitical relations have changed during the course of
his lifetime.

Kissinger isn’t viewed as a China hawk. It is well known in certain
circles that he has a direct line to Chinese President Xi Jinping. And
the discussions he had with Trump appear, at least superficially, to
run counter to his public pronouncements since 2017 that China’s
signature Belt and Road Initiative -- Xi’s vision for a China-centric
world based on infrastructure and trade deals, and the object of
growing Western alarm -- would have a positive effect on Asia.

Kissinger is no Russophobe, either. He has met
with Putin 17 times over the years. And Kissinger has
repeatedly advocated for a better working relationship between
Washington and Moscow. Of last week’s summit in Helsinki between Trump
and Putin, Kissinger said,
“It was a meeting that had to take place. I have advocated it for
several years.” He has also expressed
doubt about the purpose of Russian interference in the election, and
promoted a better balance of power among the world’s largest
influencers.

His overall views seem to have made their way into
explanations for Trump’s affinity for Putin. One former Trump
administration official referred
to Trump’s posture toward Putin during the Helsinki summit earlier this
month as “the reverse of the Nixon-China play.”

“Russia and China are cozying up to each other and it’s a
lethal combination if they’re together,” said the former official, who
was familiar with the strategizing behind the summit.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, various figures in the
Trump orbit -- not just Kissinger -- discussed a strategy of shoring up
relations not only with Russia, but also with Japan, the Philippines,
India, Middle Eastern countries, and others as a wide-ranging
international counterweight to what was pitched as the dominant Chinese
threat.

Since becoming president, Trump, those sources said, has shown
varying signs of interest. But his actual posture toward China has
remained difficult to define. The president has flattered the country’s
political leadership, partnered with it on key foreign policy matters,
and adopted highly confrontational positions on trade. Anything
resembling a large, cohesive “counterweight” policy has yet to gain
serious traction. And one of the main economic levers that would be
used to achieve this type of outcome -- the trade deal known as the
Trans Pacific Partnership -- was abandoned by Trump even as Kissinger
himself nominally
supported it.

Internally, the fights over a China policy have been lengthy. Steve
Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, has long railed against a
rising threat from China, and he was present during the meeting between
Trump and Kissinger that took place during the transition. Other Trump
allies who share Bannon’s hawkish disposition include trade adviser
Peter Navarro, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Tom Cotton (R-AR), and U.S.
Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

Unlike Kissinger -- who stressed that relations with Russia
were not an end goal itself but part of a decades long approach to
revamping continental power structures -- these advisers argued that
the threat from China needed to be confronted in the near term. A
congressional source familiar with the strategy said Bannon often
focused on “civilizational threats that face the U.S. emanating from
Arab world and China.” Indeed, Bannon has backed populist, nationalist
parties throughout Europe based in large part on appealing to identity
politics and perceived international threats. Those same parties have
often embraced and praised Putin.

Among Capitol Hill foreign policy circles, the source added,
the view is that Kissinger’s motivations for pursuing the reverse of
his own policy from the 1970s are “more intellectually honest and
honorable” than Bannon’s. Though a separate source familiar with the
transition talks said the two individuals had a fair amount of overlap
in terms of their world views.

“[Kissinger] did not advocate a partnership with Russia,” said
the source. “But he was absolutely adamant that 17 years of the global
war on terror had taken up too much time and focus. And he is a huge
believer that this is a great power struggle [with China].”

The issue for lawmakers, as is often the case with Trump, has
been trying to discern whether his attempts to cozy up to Russia are
driven by broader concerns about Beijing’s growing influence, or by an
affinity for Putin himself.

That certainly has been the case in the wake of the Helsinki
summit, during which Trump sided with Putin’s denials of Russian
election meddling over the assessment of his own intelligence agencies.

The episode prompted sharp criticism from lawmakers, including
some who said that any talk of strategically working with Putin to
combat China is merely a face-saving measure to explain away the
president’s conduct. But according to Capitol Hill sources, it also
left several lawmakers wondering whether the administration was
attempting to make a larger move on China.

“I’m hesitant to characterize what is being legitimately
discussed because this administration is such an incoherent dumpster
fire it’s impossible to ascertain what’s legitimate discussion, what’s
not legitimate, what’s being discussed in one part but may have no
traction elsewhere,” a source on Capitol Hill said.

Trump advisers have considered the Kissinger-type approach to
east Asia since the 2016 campaign. But a source close to the White
House noted that the “key word is ‘considering’ as they know that any
move to implement it would, at least currently, be met with a massive
backlash, and rightly so.”

The source added that several senior White House officials
believe that “Russia would be a ‘useful counterweight’ to China.” But
not everyone buys into that theory.

It’s not just that Russia has played a largely
counter-productive role vis-a-vis the United States, and much of the
rest of the liberal world order, over the last few years. It’s that
their points of leverage over China are limited largely to weapons,
oil, and cyber intrusions.

“I understand the idea of a collective approach to boxing
China in and trying to integrate it into an order consistent with our
interests,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign
Relations. “I just don’t see Russia as currently oriented playing a
role in that.”

Still, U.S. officials have become increasingly vocal in their
warnings of the threat that China poses and the need for a
comprehensive strategy to combat it. At the Aspen Security Forum last
week, FBI Director Christopher Wray called
China “the broadest, most challenging, most significant threat we face
as a country,” and Michael Collins, deputy assistant director of the
CIA’s East Asia mission, said
that China is waging a “cold war” against the United States.

“It is clear the Trump administration views the rise of China
-- from issues of trade, its continued quest to dominate Asia and
displace U.S. power to building a military that can challenge
Washington’s most advanced weaponry -- as its number one national
security challenge,” said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies
at the Center for the National Interest. “I am not shocked that they
would consider Russia a potential partner in containing China’s rise.”

In theory, the partner-with-Russia-to-combat-China strategy --
regardless of its motivations -- is not entirely without merit, experts
say, if only to break up the partnership developing between Presidents
Putin and Xi themselves.

“China and Russia have a very similar worldview right now and
they're supporting each other pretty strongly. I don’t see a lot of
cracks,” said Lyle Goldstein, a Russia and China expert at the U.S.
Naval War College.

Russia and China often pursue complementary agendas and
support each other at the United Nations Security Council, said Abigail
Grace, who until recently worked on the Asia portfolio at the National
Security Council. “I don’t think that the level of China-Russia
collaboration is necessarily within U.S. interests,” Grace said.

But while Moscow and Beijing have cordial relations and share
many strategic objectives, there are areas of relative distrust between
them, including over Central Asia. China has made major economic and
diplomatic inroads in the region with its Belt and Road Initiative,
which includes Central Asian nations as a key part of its strategy. But
Russia views that region as within its traditional sphere of influence.
While it hasn’t stood in the way of Xi’s overtures to countries like
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, it has declined to join the initiative
despite China’s invitation.

Beyond Central Asia, it’s also clear that with its enormous
economy and rapidly expanding military ambitions, China is on a
trajectory to greatly surpass Russia’s global heft -- a trajectory that
could compel Russia to seek partnerships (informal or otherwise)
elsewhere.

“Looking out over long term, there is a belief in the
administration that Moscow will see Beijing as its greatest
geopolitical foe -- just like Washington does now -- and that could set
up a rapprochement with America,” said a source close to the White
House. “But it is very far out into the future.”

But there’s a very good reason the “reverse Nixon” strategy
hasn’t been implemented yet. It’s just not geopolitically realistic.

“China is the greater long term strategic challenge,” said
John Rood, the under secretary of defense for policy, at the Aspen
Security Forum. “But in many ways, Russia is the larger near term
threat because of the overwhelming lethality of its nuclear arsenal and
also because of some of the behavior that the Russian government has
exhibited.”

Russia is at times a flamboyant foe of the European Union and
the United States, seeking to sow disruption and division within and
among Western allies. It also has been a highly disruptive force in
U.S. politics, making it an illogical partner for an ambitious attempt
to help preserve the current international system.

“At the moment, with Russia having tried to attack our
democratic institutions as well as still acting like a rogue state in
Ukraine and Syria, the chances of a U.S.-Russia alliance to take on
China are slim to none,” said Kazianis.

“But know this: time and circumstance can change minds and win
hearts. I would not be shocked if in seven to 10 years this does indeed
take place.”